1/9/19
Russia deployed a battalion of the modern S-400 air defense missile systems to Dzhankoy in northern Crimea following the altercation between Russian and Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait. This deployment was planned long in advance, however, and not in response to the Kerch Strait incident. Following the Kerch Strait incident, a number of Russian military vehicles were spotted moving around, to, and from the peninsula, but this did not constitute a build-up nor were they particularly notable. This event was the last out of four publicly announced S-400 deployments in Crimea distributed across the 18th and 12th Missile Air Defense Regiments of the 31st Air Defense Division, 4th Air Forces and Air Defense Forces Army. Although this was described in Russian news media as the fourth deployment of S-400s to Crimea, it was actually the fifth. The battalion in Dzhankoy is the latest, and likely last, deployment of 18th Missile Air Defense Regiment S-400s to Crimea since Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014. The deployment was widely perceived as a response to the incident in the Kerch Strait just days prior, but satellite imagery revealed that work on the facility began as early as August 15, 2018. This deployment was announced in Russian media as the second battalion of the 18th Missile Air Defense Regiment and the fourth overall deployment of S-400s to Crimea, but four battalions worth of S-400s were already present on the peninsula by the time of the Dzhankoy deployment.
The S-400 site in Kerch is the most extensive of the 18th Air Defense Regiment locations and has seen significant growth since Russian forces took over the facility in 2014. The current configuration of the site consists of a large collection of radars in addition to the base S-400 system. The most recent addition to the base was an unidentified radome, a protective casing for a radar, on which construction began in the summer of 2018. While the exact type of the radome was not known, it bore a high similarity to that used for the Kasta-2E2, an ultra-high frequency (UHF) radar for tracking and identifying aircraft. Starting in 2017, components of the S-400 air defense system appeared at the Kerch location in place of the previous S-300 components. Satellite imagery on Google Earth suggested that this switch was made some time between September 11 and November 20, 2016. These new distinguishable components comprised the 96L6 and 92N6 radars. Three other S-400 sites exist on the Crimean peninsula, and all deployed within the past two years. The Feodosia site was the first S-400 deployment for the 18th Missile Air Defense Regiment, which was considered the first deployment of S-400s to Crimea altogether. The most recent deployment of 12th Missile Air Defense Regiment S-400s was the battalion near Yevpatoria, the site of a major military airfield. While the movement of forces in Crimea were likely meant to signal Russian resolve, little appeared to have been achieved. The main thing to watch in the future will be long-term improvements to existing forces and the arrival of new ones.